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EconomistPunter t1_j9vi8jr wrote

Reply to comment by PPQue6 in Daily use of marijuana raises risk of heart disease, study finds by TheDodoBird

The growing lit suggests many of the benefits of marijuana are overstated, or that they disappear when correctly accounting for trends. It’s not some anti-cannabis conspiracy; it’s growth in an area with significant research limitations until recently…

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PEVEI t1_j9vifvn wrote

There's a difference between dismissing outrageous claims of efficacy, and proving harm.

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EconomistPunter t1_j9vin4b wrote

They didn’t prove harm. Even the language of the author “may cause” suggests they understand it’s a correlation that could be more.

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PEVEI t1_j9virbu wrote

My goal wasn't to engage in semantic arguments, but to point out that "the benefits are overstated" doesn't imply that the harm is understated.

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EconomistPunter t1_j9vj0ib wrote

Again, early studies on this suffered from data limitations. We don’t really know much. This research sphere is filled with dubious claims.

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PEVEI t1_j9vjvfy wrote

I agree, and this unreviewed study with a modest sample analyzed with MR is one of those.

Having said that there have been some longitudinal studies on the harm of smoking marijuana, which is generally argued to be the most harmful way to take it, they've proven unable to find even a corollary.

There have been a few which find a very slight signal of possible lung cancer risk in heavy marijuana smokers after a 40 year follow-up, but it's tenuous.

Still others have looked at links between coronary vessel disease and marijuana, with the benefit of peer review and publication. They found nothing.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5343712

Some studies attempted to find a link between marijuana use and stroke or myocardial infarction, but they inevitably fall apart when confounding factors such as smoking, drinking, and other high risk behaviors are accounted for.

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EconomistPunter t1_j9vkov0 wrote

And some of the early marijuana laws specifically targeted a substitution relationship between opioids and marijuana, which have largely evaporated in more recent studies. That’s certainly harm understatement.

Marijuana research suffers from both attenuation bias and bias that increases the magnitude of results. It’s a glorious mess in the sphere.

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